Kodak housed nuclear reactor with enriched uranium

Here’s a strange tale for you: back in 2006, it was discovered that Kodak was housing a nuclear reactor filled with 3.5lbs of enriched uranium in Rochester, NY. Even stranger, Kodak say that they never made an official announcement regarding the materials, and state officials knew nothing about it until the info was leaked by an ex-employee.

The reactor was kept securely in a bunker with two-foot concrete walls, and was decommissioned in 2006. When the uranium was removed in November 2007, it was taken away in protective containers and escorted by armed guards. While the facility was mentioned in several research papers and a few public documents on federal websites, its existence was otherwise restricted information following security concerns after 9/11.

Experts are perplexed as to how Kodak acquired the material. Miles Pomper, senior research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, told the Democrat and Chronicle: “It’s such an odd situation because private companies just don’t have this material.” That doesn’t mean Kodak were plotting anything nefarious, using the reactor to check materials for impurities and in neutron radiography testing.